Interview with The Griswolds

Last summer, I interviewed Australia’s indie rock sweethearts The Griswolds. The Sydney quartet are getting a lot of buzz from touring with Andrew McMahon in The Wilderness at the end of last year, and Walk the Moon in 2014. I asked them a few questions about inspirations and differences between Canadian and Australian fans.

Christopher Whitehall

Lachlan West

Daniel Duque-Perez

Tim John

How did you guys meet, and start the band?

Christopher: How did we meet? Just the Sydney music scene, it’s a tight knit crew. Lots of bands, everyone plays together around the same venues in Sydney. We all met through different bands.

Lachlan: Yeah, small scene, it’s good. When you play in a band, you know everyone else.

C: Yeah and when it came to start our band, I guess we just kinda picked our favourite people.

L: Who would we want to spend six months with and not want to murder?

What would you put down as influences for the band, or for each of you individually, for your sound?

Daniel: I would say MGMT

L: Phoenix

Tim: We all started out on grunge, I guess. Guns & Roses

C: 80’s fan, then moved into a grunge kid

L: Metal periods here and there

D: A whole bunch of different influences we’ve moved through, pretty ecclectic, but there’s bits of instrumentation through each song from different sounds.

This is your first headlining tour outside of Australia. How does it feel?

L: There’s people coming to the shows, it’s fucking crazy!

D: Last year, we played Canada as support for someone else and no one came out. If that happened again… If no one came out, at least we have family here because it would have just bee the staff.

What was the inspiration for a lot of the songs on Be Impressive? Was it life events, or stuff you really wanted to write and sing about?

C: Honestly, a lot of the songs are about being on the road and being away from home. Being away for huge periods of time in a car.

L: I guess that’s a pretty common theme in the album, being away from home.

D: There’s also songs on there about friends and stuff, like “Beware the Dog”.

C: Lots of relationship stuff too. Usually due to not being there.

You have a lot of female fans of the younger group. Is that similar to Australia?

C: That is totally different!

L: We did a tour here with Walk The Moon, and a lot of their fans, of the younger female type, moved from them to us.

D: Our fan base at home is more university hipster kids, with bucket hats and tie-dye shirts and big beards. It’s definitely a different crowd. We came onto the scene here a lot different than back home. Just work the scene back home, and more popping in here.

L: Our Australian fan base looks like the cast of “Fast Times At Ridgemont High”. Surfer bros, wherever we go.

T: Which is awesome because we get a lot of gifts.

C: Yeah, shirts, chocolate, biscuits.

What does the next year look like for you guys?

C: Back for another two-months tour at the end of the year (2015), and besides that doing a lot of songwriting. We go back to Autralia for a Passion Pit tour.

L: Looking forward to that.

They’re doing another headlining tour across North America this spring.